Friday, March 22, 2013

Sheikh Saeed Ramadan al
Bouti might have been a supporter of the Assad regime, but his murder
is as tragic to the Syrians in the opposition, though many might not
realise it yet. One might ask whether the death of this one man is
any different to the tens of thousands of Syrians that have been
murdered over the past two years, and it is a fair question to ask.
The answer is both no and yes, as clear as everything else in the
Middle East. No insofar as he is just the latest victim of Assad's
quixotic crusade to hold an entire country to ransom, and yes,
because the death of a man of his theological and intellectual
calibre will be a great blow to Islam, and not just any Islam, but
Levantine Islam.

Al Bouti was often
derided as the “Sultan's Sheikh”, and was known for his
anti-revolutionary position and strong support of Assad. Recently he
had even called for an Islamic jihad against the enemies of Assad's
state, and implored believers to join the Syrian Army. At the start
of the revolution, al Bouti had angered his Friday congregation by
claiming that those killed in the early protests were not martyrs and
were themselves to blame for what had happened. He had also famously
described those revolting against Assad's rule as “scum”. In
spite of these positions, he is not somebody who can be dismissed
lightly, and it is widely believed that his position kept a lot of
Sunni Muslims in the capital out of the revolution and in their
homes, and possibly even saved their lives from the regime, but that
is a controversial view for some in the revolution to take.

Respected throughout
the Muslim world for his views and writings, al Bouti had, until two
years ago, represented the quintessential, for Muslims, Syrian
approach to religion; a spirituality tinged with Sufism. Long before
Syria was the beating heart of Arabism, it was and remains the
beating heart of Sunni Islam. By this I do not wish to emphasize the
difference between Sunni Islam and Shiism, but between Sunni Islam as
it was and the Salafist ideology it is associated unfairly with
today. Many in Syria, especially those within the
opposition like Muath al Khatib – a former Imam of the Ummayad
Mosque in Damascus – have explained time and again that Islam in
Syria is not the same as the Wahhabi or Salafist extremism that
dominates the world's attention. Most Syrians would proudly insist
the same though few can actually explain why. To understand Islam as
understood by many Syrians, we need to look back to a time when the
Ottoman empire ruled the region for over four hundred years.

The
Ottomans were not just Sunni Muslims, but Hanafi and Maturidi
Sunni Muslims, and they were Sufis. The Maturidi creed is the
anti-thesis of the core doctrines of Wahhabism, which are quick to
exclude those who deviate from Islamic teachings as unbelievers. In
contrast, the Maturidi creed considers belief as a state which either
exists or not. It is piety which can increase or decrease. For
example, a person might smoke, drink, and have forgotten what the
inside of a mosque looks like, and yet they would still be deeply
imbibed with Islamic tradition, considering themselves to be Muslims
without the slightest feeling of contradiction. History shows that
the Ottomans were far from perfect, but the seeds for tolerance were,
of necessity, within the jurisprudence they adhered to.

Damascus in particular
holds a reverence for this Sufi piestic tradition. Dotted throughout
the city are the domed shrines where Sufi sheikhs and wise men have
been buried throughout the ages. These ancient shrines are still
highly venerated, and one continues to look down over Damascus, the
famous Qubat al Sayar, whilst the Four Seasons Hotel development was
built around, rather than over, another. The sheer number of Sufi
saints that had settled in Damascus throughout the centuries is
underlined by the fact that the grandmaster and greatest of them all,
Sheikh Muhyildeen Ibn Arabi, is buried in the Damascus neighbourhood
that now bears his name, and where Sufi gatherings still take place
every Tuesday night. Furthermore, the Ottomans referred to this city
as “Sham sherif” (Holy Sham, using the ancient name) and
whilst the old Sufi orders were eventually stamped out under
Ataturk's Turkey, their influence and tradition lived on in Syria.
When al Khatib highlights his worry that there are interpretations of Islam that we do not recognise in Syria, and that the Islamic character of the Free Syrian Army is not the same as that ideology, then he is speaking from this background and heritage and it is important to distinguish that the SunniIslam of many Syrians is not the same as that of Salafists.

It is from within this
rich tradition and fabric that both al Bouti and al Khatib emerge,
and whilst they found themselves on different sides of the
revolution, it is very likely that men like them who would have set the first stones
of reconciliation not just between Sunni Muslims in Syria but between
all communities in the country. Apart from the blow to Syria's
spiritual heritage, al Bouti's killing means one less sane and
reasonable individual, however controversial his views, who could
have been a force for healing in the country. A commonly voiced view
is that the Islamic orders which had aligned with Assad's regime,
including the female Qubaysi order, have done so not because they
support the regime but because they feared further bloodshed and the
deaths of their followers. This is not as controversial a view as
some Muslims in the opposition would think. Prior to the Syrian
revolution Adnan al Arour, a Salafist Syrian Sheikh based in Saudi
Arabia and known for his opposition to the Assad regime, said clearly
and unequivocally that Syrians should not rise up against the regime
at all so long as everything was calm and safe.

We will never know al
Bouti's motives for certain and some will argue that his proximity to
the regime and prominence would have made any public voicing of his
concerns an impossibility. His support of the regime was
deeply unpopular and caused consternation as well as amusement, but
his death will leave a terrible vacuum for all of us as we see the
Syria we once knew get blown apart bit by bit.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

I've always liked your posts and follow them but I find yours today about Bouti very disgracing. I know as muslims we should not speak bad of the dead, but to speak in good manners about someone who sided with shatan is something else. I find in your writings an intelligent and sincere individual, I hope your wisdom will guide you to the right track. Please note that the word you utter (and what you write too) will weigh in theh balance, so be careful what you say, and be careful to whom your heart leans.Ammar Nouri

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